“Now I just want to rest and enjoy being with my family and fiends”, said the former FC Barcelona player 

Asked to name a highlight from his career, he picked out his comeback against Real Madrid in the Champions League.

On Friday at midday, 35-year-old Éric Abidal announced his retirement from football at a special conference called in the pressroom at his current club, Olympiakos. “This is a very important moment in my career” said the Frenchman. “I have made the decision to officially end my career.” A regular in the Barça defence for six seasons, Abidal explained that his decision to hang up his boots was for personal reasons.

Joined in the pressroom by the director of sport at the Greek club,Christian Karembeu, Abidal also spoke about his plans for the immediate future. “I told the Olympiakos president that I’d give everything for the club until December. From now on, I want to rest and enjoy being with my family and friends. I have received offers to work at FC Barcelona and also Olympiakos, but I have time to think things over and choose what’s best for the people I love.”

 

 

Asked to pick highlights from his career, he replied that “the time I made my comeback against Real Madrid was one of the greatest moments of my career. For me, football was a way of forgetting my illness. My objective was to play again. And coming back like that was an emotional winning a title, if not more.”

Éric Abidal donned the Barça shirt from 2007 to 2013, scoring two goals in 193 matches. In that time, he won two Champions Leagues, four Ligas, two Spanish Cups, two Clubs World Cups, two Spanish Super Cups and three Spanish Super Cups. In 2011, it was revealed that he had a liver tumour, and in 2012 he underwent a transplant.